Xcel softens stance on banner ban after consulting municipal leaders

Utility to inspect, approve specific poles for banner, flag use

The first of the year came and went without the feared legions of utility workers scaling light poles and tearing down flags, banners and attachments throughout the state.

Despite a warning from Xcel Energy earlier this year that Dec. 31 would be the final date banners could be left hanging on its street lamps, it appears that the utility and the municipalities who have for decades relied on the poles for community announcements are headed for compromise.

Xcel has agreed to push ahead with inspection of certain light poles on which towns and cities want to hang banners, signs or flags to determine their strength and integrity and assess whether they can withstand wind and weather while carrying additional weight.

"It is not currently our intent to take any immediate action to force the removal of banners or other attachments," Xcel spokesman Mark Stutz wrote in an email this week. "We are working with manufacturers and other cities across the state through a collaborative process to verify the types of poles that could be used for attaching banners. We have been encouraged by and want to continue to work with our other cities to meet their needs and ensure public safety."

But he said Xcel is still asking municipalities to comply with its request to remove banners while inspections are being conducted.

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Lafayette City Administrator Gary Klaphake welcomed the utility's fresh approach to addressing the issue, which sparked controversy in the fall when 120 or so municipalities in the state with Xcel-owned light poles found themselves potential targets of the utility's broad directive.

Lafayette spent more than $150,000 on light poles expressly built to support the weight of banners and flags and Klaphake was enraged when he learned about the Xcel banner ban.

"We were never trying to defend bad poles -- we just said all or nothing never made sense," he said. "For us, it was always about bad pole versus good pole."

Geoff Wilson, general counsel for the Colorado Municipal League, said aside from the sweeping nature of Xcel's directive city managers were left scratching their heads as to why the utility was suddenly chasing after banners now. The utility cited in a May letter a decades-old rule -- embedded in every franchise agreement Xcel has with towns and cities across Colorado -- that prohibits the placement of anything on light poles except "police attachments," like speed limit signs or surveillance cameras.

"City managers said to themselves, 'We've been doing this for decades, there hasn't been a problem for decades -- so why now?'" Wilson said.

Lafayette has submitted more than 20 light poles for Xcel's inspection and Klaphake has no doubts they will pass with flying colors. He hopes to have American flags up on the poles by Memorial Day.

"If these fail, they're all going to fail," he said. "There's no sign of corrosion at all."

Louisville City Manager Malcolm Fleming, who last fall feared a "Parade of Gloom" replacing the city's annual Parade of Lights if Louisville was forced to remove its holiday bulbs from its downtown street lamps, said progress was made over a series of meetings in November and December between city managers and Xcel.

"It took a while but ultimately they could see this was an important issue for communities and we weren't going to take things down and be quiet," he said.

Downtown Louisville is still flying winter-themed banners on Main Street and Fleming said the city didn't see much sense in removing everything on Jan. 1 only to be told in a few months that the poles are perfectly suitable for attachments.

Louisville has submitted around 150 light poles -- on Main Street, South Boulder Road and McCaslin Boulevard -- it wants Xcel to inspect and sign off on for banner use.

Stutz said there isn't a specific date yet by which its light poles in Colorado will be examined and approved for attachments. But he said any problem poles discovered between now and then will be immediately addressed.

"If our inspections raise any immediate concerns from a safety or operational standpoint, we will seek to resolve the issue as quickly as possible," he wrote. "This could result in the removal of certain poles or attachments, and that could occur as early as this month."

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